Sunday, August 30, 2015

Rico Petrocelli played shortstop and third base for the Boston Red Sox basically from 1965 through 1976, plus one game in 1963...

When Ricco suddenly jumped from 12 to 40 (in 1969) we all attributed it to his playing his home games in Fenway Park with that silly left field wall.

If we had given it a second thought we could have reasoned as follows.

How many HR could he have reasonably hit at home? Let's say a whopping 25. That would still leave 15 on the road. Prior to that Ricco's previous high for an entire season had been 18. So obviously something more than the Green Monster in Fenway Park was involved...

Maybe it was steroids. We now know that the 1963 San Diego Chargers were given steroids by the coaches. But the real issue here is whether we baseball fans are stupid.

The type of issue involving Rico Petrocelli in 1969 is repeated every day in 2013. It's impossible to listen to a conversation about baseball for more than five minutes without an otherwise intelligent educated human being saying something comparably stupid.

Does baseball make us stupid or are we interested in baseball because we are already stupid? ...

1969: 22 home, 18 road. 18 was his previous high for a season.
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Boyer had been the starting third baseman for the Yankees 1960 through 1966, which includes consecutive pennant winners the first five years. Boyer was a right handed hitter playing his home games in the original Yankee Stadium, which was 457 to left center and 461 to center. Boyer's home run high with the Yankees was 18 in both 1962 and 1965. His home road splits:

1962:

I

Split

G

GS

PA

AB

R

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

SB

CS

BB

SO

BA

OBP

SLG

OPS

TB

GDP

HBP

SH

SF

IBB

ROE

BAbip

tOPS+

sOPS+

Home

76

74

281

240

33

62

7

1

6

28

1

0

30

47

.258

.337

.371

.708

89

8

2

2

7

8

3

.289

92

94

Away

82

82

352

326

52

92

17

0

12

41

2

2

21

59

.282

.327

.445

.771

145

9

1

3

1

0

5

.313

106

118

1965:

I

Split

G

GS

PA

AB

R

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

SB

CS

BB

SO

BA

OBP

SLG

OPS

TB

GDP

HBP

SH

SF

IBB

ROE

BAbip

tOPS+

sOPS+

Home

71

64

262

242

30

59

13

4

7

26

1

0

16

37

.244

.295

.417

.712

101

7

2

1

1

5

0

.261

96

104

Away

77

76

300

273

39

70

10

2

11

32

3

1

23

42

.256

.311

.429

.740

117

9

0

1

3

5

2

.265

104

118

Even considering that he had more at bats (AB) on the road, Boyer had better home run rates on the road.

1967, first season with Braves:

I

Split

G

GS

PA

AB

R

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

SB

CS

BB

SO

BA

OBP

SLG

OPS

TB

GDP

HBP

SH

SF

IBB

ROE

BAbip

tOPS+

sOPS+

Home

73

72

286

263

32

65

10

1

10

46

5

1

22

28

.247

.304

.407

.711

107

4

0

0

1

2

1

.243

100

108

Away

81

79

333

309

31

75

8

2

16

50

1

2

17

53

.243

.282

.437

.719

135

10

2

0

5

1

4

.241

100

119

All these years I had assumed that Boyer's sudden increase in home runs was because he was playing his home games in Atlanta's "launching pad". Boyer's home rate (AB/HR) improved with the Braves both home and road: